Beauty and the Geek – Gandyl and Melissauron Take On The Lord of the Rings!

Let me ask you this: what’s better than the wisdom and flair of a beauty adventurer? Why, the wisdom and flair of TWO beauty adventurers, of course! Today, I’m very excited to bring you yet another collaboration with the incomparable adventuress Melissa over at Kiss and Make-Up!

Right! You have four seconds to think of an epic (if rather long-winded) tale of fantasy and adventure in three parts, complete with elves, dwarves etc. Done? Good! Now: who thought of The Lord of The Rings? Go on, be honest. Well, for our next collaboration, Melissa and I certainly did!

There are about a million and one looks you could squeeze out of Tolkien’s works, but Melissa chose the classic Eye of Sauron, and I decided to try my hand at a dual tone Gandalf look (hint: Gandalf is my favourite character). First up, here are some (amusing) concept images:

I decided what I wanted to focus on was the contrast between Gandalf the Grey’s rather lived-in, greasy, rumpled sort of style, and Gandalf the White’s warm, almost blinding luminescence. Because of this, I’ll mention now that my Gandalf the White look could probably stand in for Saruman the White or Galadriel if necessary (although I’d probably add more gold for Galadriel).

Without further ado, this is what I ended up with (after discovering that I have about two white eye makeup products to my name – whoops!)

Gandalf the Grey on the left, Gandalf the White on the right! I’m such a…half poet.

How the Transformation was Made:

Gandalf The Grey:

I took a long look at the colour of Gandalf’s robes here, and decided that in certain lights they were a bit purply/heathery. This was all the excuse I needed to bust out some purple in the look, which involved layering Lancome Gris Clair over the lid, Lancome Brun lightly in the crease, Urban Decay Grifter in the inner corner, and the same pattern on the lower lash line. I filled in both my waterlines with Urban Decay Uzi (gunmetal) 24/7 liner, then lined the upper lash line with a mixture of UD Demolition (matte brown) and UD Psychedelic Sister (iridescent warm purple), and added some Psychedelic Sister to the lower waterline. I left my lashes totally untouched, since fussing with mascara and big lashes seemed somehow un-Gandalfey. I also left my brows untouched, and brushed them downward to approximate an ‘old man wizard’ brow. :-D

Gandalf the Grey…

Gandalf the White

As I mentioned above, I discovered after setting out upon this journey that I only had about three white makeup products in my entire (admittedly modest) hoard. Never one to be deterred by a challenge, I chose to emulate the radiance of Gandalf the White, rather than specific details. I wanted a graphic, clean edged eye look that was blindingly, aggressively pale, bordering on the ehtereal/magical. To achieve this (or at least what I got) I used Sand Out From the Crowd from the Tarte MATTEnificent palette (matte white yellow, review here) all over the lid all the way up to the eyebrow, followed by Urban Decay Polyester Bride on the lid and lower lash line. I then gave myself some nice graphic liner/cat eye liner with UD Cuff eyeliner (silver) and squashed Chanel’s Illusion d’Ombre in Fantasme (amazing fine silver white iridescence) all over the wet liner. I coated my lashes in lipgloss (Revlon Snow Pink) and then patted on Pink Outside the Box from that same Tarte palette to make what I think of as ‘snow lashes’. Yes, I said lipgloss. What? I don’t own clear mascara, lipgloss or eyebrow gel. :-P This time, I left my eyebrow groomed, and paled it a little with the white eyeshadow.

…and Gandalf the White!

What about lips, you ask? Well, let’s be honest, I don’t really see Gandalf the Grey bothering with something like lipstick, do you? I mean, the man has magic and he doesn’t even wash his hair! For Gandalf the White, while I still theink he probably doesn’t much go for lipstick, I feel the theme of ‘luminosity’ here wil allow us to add a touch of sparkly, neutral lipgloss, in the form of Revlon Snow Pink (review here). What do you think? Since the lips below obviously aren’t Gandalf’s, I’ve taken the liberty of altering my name slightly to Gandyl for the purposes of this post.. ;-)

Gandalf lips! I could have gone some very strange places with this, but I thought I’d keep it logical… no lipstick on the left, and Revlon Snow Pink on the right.

Melissauron’s Look

Curious about what Melissauron’s Eye is up to? If we know Melissa’s epic skills, I’m sure that before your soul is rent from your body, you’ll be super impressed! Click here to check out Melissa’s burning gaze…

Until next time, fellow adventurers, don’t forget to check for traps!

Syl

I am an adventuring rogue, not a mercenary for hire, and as such, all opinions expressed here are my own, based on a genuine fondness for/interest in this product. If you have any queries or suggestions, please do not hesitate to pin your parchment to the board (contact me) at thepaintedrogue [at] gmail [dot] com., or use the contact form provided! All images on this site, unless otherwise noted, are the property of Syl, and may not be reproduced without permission. If you do, I will be forced to unleash drunken bards on you. The pukey ones.

35 thoughts on “Beauty and the Geek – Gandyl and Melissauron Take On The Lord of the Rings!”

You are totally rocking the “Gandalf the white” eyes! I cannot even imagine myself with anything white on my face it’ll look obnoxious! I checked out a few other of your looks and either you have amazingly beautiful eyes or you are pretty good at making them up! :D

Hehe, you’re making me blush!! I have to admit, if I’d done both eyes in the white, it would have been pretty arresting. ‘Editorial’ might be a way to put it! I think it’s mostly the white eyelashes though :-P

I’ll take the compliment for my eyes – my skills are pretty mediocre, LOL! I just stab my finger in a pan of eyeshadow and rub it on my lids, then blend the edges with another finger. No Joke. I am the cavewoman of eye makeup…

Hahaha this is so cool, Syl! Gotta be hones here: I tried to watch Lord of the Rings, but man those movies are long and I just drifted off… But anyways! I like how you can see both eyes side-by-side here. From a pure “makeup” point of view, this illustrates nicely how light and dark colors contrast as well as how important brows are LOL

Brows really are a thing. Sometimes I lament the shortcomings of my stash, but other times it’s kind of interesting to figure out ways to work with limited resources. Did I ever think I’d put lipgloss in my eyelashes? No. But now I have!

Also, re: LOTR – I stayed awake, but my butt fell asleep. Every time. I still haven’t seen the third movie in English yet (only German) for that exact reason… :-P

I was looking for source images, and cracked up at that one! So true.
It was fun getting to use Fantasme, but the magnitude of sparkle doesn’t really show up in the pictures *sigh*. I want to review it, but I need to figure out how to showcase the effect properly…

I say, have you visited the Tolkienist’s blog? He has a recent essay all about Tom Bombadil, if I recall correctly! Also, in news completely unrelated to this post, I discovered a Daily Wodehouse feed on Twitter. Instant love :-D

OT : thanks! You should totally give a white eyeshadow look a go – I actually found it a great excuse to finally use Polyester Bride for something other than highlighting the inner corner…

This is an amazing idea/post/look! I love the concept and the fact that you did a different thing on each eye, the contrast is lovely! Though I think if I did a look based on Middle Earth I’d have to turn to the fabulous-dwarf-racist-party-king Thranduil. Or Eyown. Or the awesome dwarf ladies we saw at the beginning of the Hobbit. I’m feeling all inspired now.

These are both great looks that would be amazing when worn out. (Possibly symmetrically.) As a fan (of course), I particularly like Gandalf the White. Radiant is a great word; he DOES glow. I almost feel like glitter would be appropriate. But then, I often do.

I *wish* the glitter from Fantasme showed up more in the photos! The iridescence is gorgeous – I actually use it as a highlighter for collarbones if I’m going out somewhere special, and it never fails to get compliments! Magical sparkle FTW :-D

And yes, symmetrical wear would probably be better for most real life wear situations :-P

Follow a Rogue (we know where the treasure is!)

The rogue presents the loot! No traps, no danger, just glorious, happy peach coloured blush. The warrior has taken the druid away for a cup of trea and a lie-down.

A choice of lipsticks for your Thief: my current favourite ‘nude for pale people’, Revlon’s Lacquer Balm in Demure; Bloom Charleston for a more tawny pink, and an old favourite MUFE #49 for the purple Queen of Beggars!

Red poppy lips! We have Lancome for the upper and lower left images, Revlon for the upper centre, naked lips for the lower centre, and two ways to wear Estee Lauder’s Rich Red at the right.

Full on Zegana! This was way to much fun to do, actually.

The incredibly photogenic Eilhana, with just enoughof her beauty on display, which is to say, just as much as she wants there to be.

A wearable Zegana-inspired eye look for every day!

Pretty…but deadly?

Cuddly sweater shot, this time in direct morning sunlight! It is a well-documented fact that cuddly sweaters are 20X more effective when they also have tiny sparkles in them.

Most of the polishes used in this manicure. This is what happens when two PhD students try to do a manicure. Things get…complicated.

Adventurers assemble! The party members are arguing over who gets to take which awesome coral weapon of Destory Undead. Don’t worry, they’ll get themselves together shortly.